Examples Of Greed In The Great Gatsby

In The Great Gatsby deep obsessions over money and power lead people to a loveless and corrupted world. This may have been one of the most depressing stories that F. Scott FitzGerald wrote in The Great Gatsby because FitzGerald has a deep understanding of lives that can be corrupted by greed with people having a sad and an unfulfilled ending. People can be so lonely, and empty that they can never find what they truly want in life and keep pushing it away and then realizing that it was a bad choice in the end.
First of all, Fitzgerald tells that affairs seem to be what corrupts marriages. Tom and Daisy would have come across as a nice, happily married couple. You would have never have thought that Tom had a mistress and Daisy was in love with

They are wealthy and really have everything they could possibly want. They don't really love each other or at least they don't show it very well. Tom and Daisy were at one point in love. But in reality, their relationship is based on money and social status. Myrtle is telling Catherine about her husband, “I married him because I thought he was a gentleman, she said finally. I thought he knew something about breeding but he wasn’t fit to lick my shoe… The only crazy I was when I married him. I knew right away I made a mistake” (FitzGerald 39) Mr. Wilson, and herself. She feels regret marrying him and she knew the right away that she made a mistake. She thought that she was at the same level as him. She was stuck being married to a man who was untrue. She suggested that she was fooled in marriage and that she is nearer to the level of Tom. It reveals that Myrtle is an incredibly selfish and self centered woman, because she is unsatisfied with her husband small

Fitzgerald builds Daisy as this innocent woman of purity. She is the opposite from what she presents herself to be. As the story continues Daisy reveals herself a little bit more. Daisy promised to wait for Gatsby, but she chose marrying Tom Buchanan, a young man from a solid aristocratic family who could promise her a wealthy lifestyle. The pursuit of wealth was more important to her than Gatsby, her true love, and she wasn’t afraid to break his heart. Given fully aware of her husband’s affair she doesn’t do anything about it because he has money and power and she enjoys the benefits she receives from these things, so she is willing to deal with the affairs. Daisy is the most disappointing character because she chose wealth over happiness. Another incident that calls Daisy's character into question is the way she speaks of her daughter. "I hope she'll be a fool," she says, "that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool" (FitzGerald 21). Clearly, she has some experience in this area and implies that the world is no place for a woman. The best she can do is hope to survive and the best way to do that is through work of beauty rather than brains. Daisy is rich, young women with no particular moral strength or loyalty and who is in love with money and material